Trimble has introduced its next-generation Trimble Indoor Mobile Mapping Solution (TIMMS) that produces fast and accurate maps of difficult-to-navigate indoor spaces and translates them directly into 2D and 3D models of structured interiors.
TIMMS 2 is a fusion of technologies for capturing spatial data of indoor and other GNSS denied areas, the company said. It provides both lidar and spherical video, enabling the creation of accurate, real-life representations of interior spaces and all of their contents. The maps are geo-located, meaning that the real world positions of each area of the building and its contents are known and can be easily placed and oriented in a wide area model.
TIMMS 2 is smaller, lighter and more easily maneuverable than its predecessor. It can negotiate tight corners, closets and catwalks, and can be carried up and down staircases where no elevator is available for travel between building levels.
“The new Trimble Indoor Mobile Mapping Solution has been designed with greater emphasis on ease of use. It is very easy to maneuver, lift, ship and operate,” said Louis Nastro, director of Land Products at Applanix, a Trimble Company. “Our extensive experience with a broad range of projects with the previous generation TIMMS has led to a number of enhancements in data collection, processing and workflow management — making an indoor mapping project a seamless experience for users both pre- and post-mission. Whatever the building type and shape, TIMMS 2 can deliver exceptional results, both in accuracy and ease-of-use.”
Building on the success of the first-generation solution, TIMMS 2 also provides improved software workflow to manage the complete process from collection through post-processing to model production. Fully compatible with POSPac MMS, Applanix’ post-processing suite, TIMMS data can be presented in a variety of ways, including integration into Trimble Business Center and other infrastructure management or CAD packages.
Because of its increased efficiency, speed and ease-of-use, TIMMS 2 is an effective and high-productivity indoor mapping solution for buildings and facilities of all shapes and sizes, according to Trimble, including large or small areas, multi-level, industrial or commercial spaces. Users can obtain holistic 3D indoor geospatial views of all kinds of infrastructure including public buildings (government offices, schools, hospitals); industrial facilities (factories, warehouses); transportation hubs (airports, train stations); retail spaces (malls, concourses); entertainment venues (theatres, auditoriums, sound stages); and residential property (especially multi-occupancy high-rise buildings).
Maps and models of these spaces can be used for activities including revenue management and space planning; emergency preparedness and disaster planning; and historical building conservation and preservation. In addition, the base map provides a platform on which building owners and managers can serve location-based services.
Manufactured and sold by Applanix, TIMMS 2 indoor mobile mapping solution is available in the first quarter of 2016.
Below, Eric Liberty of Applanix, a Trimble company, gives an overview of Applanix’s POS AV, POS AVX 210 and TIMMS indoor mobile mapping system at INTERGEO 2015, which was held Sept. 15-17 in Stuttgart, Germany.
The ION GNSS+ 2015 Conference once again fielded a jam-packed agenda of papers on subjects from world-wide constellation updates, through GNSS integrity, indoor navigation demonstrations, multi-constellation/function chipsets, interference mitigation and jamming detection, privacy issues, and many other very interesting subjects. That’s GNSS+ in the conference name, as in “plus,” denoting the many other positioning, navigation, and timing technologies it covers.
Most papers contained advanced academic research, but there were also several new industrial releases. This year ION divided and clearly differentiated sessions between “System and Application Tracks,” that is, those with more direct industry content, and “Peer-Reviewed Tracks,” the so-called “pure” research.
As always, some of the most valuable takeaways of attending ION come from the numerous unrelated, off-the-record corridor conversations: an essential element, always spontaneous and much anticipated, but something that cannot be clearly identified nor put into the program.
The conference seemed to have around the same number attendees as last year with about the same number of exhibitors, even though a few of the big booths were missing. Paradoxically, some exhibitors privately said they did better and more business this year, even with fewer attendees, according to their estimates.
SPIRIT Navigation from Moscow did not have a booth, but Ruslan Budnik made sure to fill my notepad with lots about their technology, products and initiatives. They are among several companies working to add indoor navigation capability to smartphones, using existing onboard sensors and new intelligent software. Their solution concurrently uses multiple technologies including geomagnetic fingerprinting, pedestrian dead reckoning, and map matching, but does not rely on an installed beacon infrastructure. A Spirit app allows store operators to quickly map Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals and collect a Magnetic field map which matches the floor plan of the store’s venue. Spirit claims an accuracy of around 1 meter, which Ruslan proceeded to demonstrate to me in the corridors around the ION meeting rooms.
Theplenary session on Tuesday night was very interesting with a presentation on the results of NASA’s planetary exploration over the last several decades, by Dr. James Green, NASA Director or Planetary Science. I learned a lot about our solar system; much more out there than one suspects, and much to be revealed in the next few years!
GPS World editor Alan Cameron once again led a preview of the planned sessions for the week, with each session chair constrained to a 5-minute rapid-fire presentation aimed at enticing as many attendees as possible. Interesting and somewhat humorous at the same time; we still got a flavor of what was to come in each track.
On Wednesday I was fortunate to be able to interview several show exhibitors. Some of these you will also find in video footage on the magazine’s website, speaking to you straight from the show floor.
Skydel is a relatively new exhibitor, working with Averna, both from Montreal, Canada. Averna makes signal analysis hardware on which Skydel installs software-based simulation of GNSS signals. Skydel’s objective is to be able to make their solution so affordable that every engineer could have one of these record and playback simulators on their desk, rather than having to schedule time on a central, shared multi-function simulator. An exciting new-entry product developed by an energetic group of people with a high level of ingenuity; hopefully they will succeed.
DLR antenna prototypes
A robust receiver initiative from Deutsche Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), the German Aerospace Center, aims to demonstrate that jamming and interference detection and mitigation can be achieved much more effectively than just at the RF level. Their processing goes deeper with such features as knowing that a source from a particular direction isn’t aligned with the current constellation, so it’s a jamming/interference suspect. Their conformal antenna development attempts to meld an antenna configuration with their signal processing capabilities. DLR is looking for partners to put these developments into commercial receiver applications.
ComNav has a new K700 family of receivers: K-700 GPS L1, Beidou B1 and Glonass L1 80 channel receiver — added to their K-708 dual frequency 198-channel dual-frequency version. The M300 Pro GNSS Receiver package includes a weather-hardened package, multiple interfaces which enable remote internet control and data access, memory and a rechargeable back-up power supply. ComNav claim the M300 Pro has been selected for the Chinese CORS network. ComNav also anticipates a name change in the near future: SinoGNSS will be their new company name.
Harxon antennas and radiosUnicore UB370 Beidou/GPS/Glonass multi-frequency OEM receiver
Harxon gave us an overview of their wide range of antenna and radio products, while Unicore in the next booth described their single and dual frequency receivers which they are now promoting extensively in North America.
NovAtel GAJT antijam systems
As usual, NovAtel had a wide range of products on display. I was impressed that the mil-spec GAJT anti-jam product-line has now undergone testing by both the U.S. and Canadian military, and that the GAJT-AE is now flying and providing guidance protection in hostile jamming environments. Once again there were mentions of NovAtel receivers and antennas being used for research in several technical papers at the conference.
Septentrio continues to make further inroads into the high-precision GNSS receiver market, and announced several new key initiatives. The company has been selected by UNAVCO as the Geodesy Advancing Geosciences and EarthScope (GAGE) facility preferred vendor for next-generation GNSS reference station products. UNAVCO ( ) is a non-profit university-governed consortium, facilitating geoscience research and education using geodesy.
AsteRx-U dual antenna receiver
Septentrio is developing a next-generation reference receiver with UNAVCO’s inputs and evaluation feedback for the purpose of upgrading and renewing their GNSS networks. Septentrio also launched the AsteRx-U and the AsteRx-U Marine multi-constellation dual antenna receivers which incorporate the latest GNSS tracking and positioning algorithms and interference mitigation along with integrated UHF radio, Wi-Fi, USB, Bluetooth, cellular connectivity, and a spectrum analyzer which provides users with their interference profile.
Indoor Navigation
ION’s annual Indoor Navigation Demo session on Wednesday afternoon turned out to have more slides and pre-recorded testing content than actual demonstrations. The participants included Nokia HERE, Rx Networks, SPIRIT Navigation, TRX Systems, Broadcom, Indoors and Combain.
HERE was able to initially demonstrate some indoor tracking of an equipped cellphone, but the display for the audience appeared to quit after a short period. They did provide a link to allow attendees to download their software and try it for themselves.
Rx Networks is apparently focusing on self-location for indoor guidance assets, and ran a pre-recorded demo of ‘Zed’ in a Vancouver Mall – but the vertical tracking display part of the video was completely washed out for the audience.
SPIRIT Navigation ran a recording of the demo I had witnessed earlier – a quite effective, working indoor nav application on a smartphone – and then walked around the demo room, but wasn’t able to show real-time results.
TRX Systems ran a very effective real-time demo and was able to show the audience the path of their ‘walker’ as he meandered around the Conference Center, changed levels and eventually returned on cue to the demo room. They use crowd sourcing to build an initial map which then constrains sensor data from standard sensors, similar to several other presenters. This appeared to be the winning demonstration for this year’s indoor nav demo. We did hear later that they were not using sensors within the smartphone, rather a separate TRX device attached to the belt or the ‘walker’.
Broadcom ran an effective demo, albeit with considerable lag between actual and displayed position and frequent jumps between points, presumably due to the same delay problem. This was attributed to the display system used to present to the audience. They also ran a second short in-room demo which was more effective and more real-time, but apparently not as accurate as TRX from the displayed results.
Indoors also use ‘radio’ fingerprinting with GNSS data as a back-up, and Wi-Fi, BLE, magnetic and inertial data fusion along with dead-reckoning. Their recorded demo was quite effective.
Combain has a system which is required to be world-wide interoperable for machine-to-machine asset location, so they are focused on using cell and Wi-Fi IDs for navigation, with databases containing 64 million Cell IDs and 726 million Wi-Fi location IDs. They claimed accuracies of 200 meters for urban areas and 40 meters for rural. These accuracies are not suitable for indoor location so no demonstration was provided.
Pico-second test results (Click on the image to enlarge it.)Pico-second test results
Later, I managed to catch a paper which Locata had recommended, which involved a number of Locata networks used by the U.S. Naval Observatory to demonstrate time and frequency transfer using the USNO Time Standard, with some highly accurate results: picoseconds! This paper forms the basis of GPS World magazine’s October cover story, providing more on these significant time-transfer and synchronization findings.
GRIFFIN Central Processor & Node Antenna Electronic Units
Another significant paper was presented in the Interference & Spectrum issues track. GPSat Systems Australia has been working for some time to implement a jammer/interference detection and localization system. The GRIFFIN 1000 system uses both Angle of Arrival (AoA) and Time Difference of Arrival (TDOA) to locate interference sources. GPSat claims that RF interference source in the GPS L1 band can be detected and geo-located to accuracies of a few meters within a few seconds. The system is already in production, with final production field testing underway, and customer deliveries scheduled for November.
Multi Element Antenna Array and Node Electronics
As ION GNSS+ came to a close for another year, it appears that this GNSS-centric conference is weathering the industry’s apparent preference for other sector shows which may draw new paying customers. ION’s academic/technical content was top-notch as usual, unparalleled anywhere, with attendees flocking to the papers, while existing customers still found comfort in meeting their suppliers on the show floor and around the corridors of the Conference Center. The formula still seems to work for now, but the apparent feeling on the floor was that better exhibitor payback may be found elsewhere, and that this could reduce ION participants in future years. Hopefully not, since this was a very good week for everyone with whom I talked.
Applanix Corporation has announced the POS AVX 210, the latest addition to its airborne position and orientation portfolio for direct georeferencing of airborne mapping sensors. Using Applanix’ GNSS and inertial technology, the POS AVX 210 enables airborne surveyors to achieve gains in accuracy, efficiency and productivity for low-altitude or small form factor sensors, when compared to GNSS-only point-matching or aerial triangulation techniques.
The announcement was made at the INTERGEO 2015 conference and exhibition in Stuttgart, where Applanix is exhibiting in Hall 8, Booth C8.047.
For photogrammetric applications, the POS AVX 210 delivers highly accurate exterior orientation solutions — reducing the requirement for ground control in assisted aerial triangulation of digital single lens reflex (DSLR) or medium-format photogrammetric imagery. For low-altitude lidar applications, the POS AVX 210 provides the required precision and accuracy of direct georeferencing to enable users to generate point clouds for further refinement in adjustment software.
The POS AVX 210 is fully compatible with, and supported by, POSPac MMS, Applanix’ post-mission software for direct georeferencing of airborne mapping sensors. It is also features a seamless integration with the NanoTrack system from Track’Air, a leading commercial flight management system designed for highly efficient survey flight operations. Aircraft equipped with the POS AVX 210 and NanoTrack will be able to fly missions with reduced sidelap between flightlines, and a greatly reduced requirement for ground control points. These benefits can reduce costs and improve the efficiency of both data collection and the production of finished data sets for end users.
“With POS AVX 210, Applanix has answered a need in the marketplace for a small, compact system that enables efficient data gathering from low-cost yet highly effective sensors. These include DSLR and Medium format cameras, low-altitude lidar systems, and other systems,” said Joe Hutton, director of Inertial Technology and Airborne Products at Applanix.
POS AVX 210 consists of a single rugged enclosure containing a precision GNSS receiver and micro-electro-mechanical-system (MEMS) inertial sensors calibrated with the Applanix SmartCal technology, coupled with on-board data logging capability and interfaces for mapping sensors and flight management systems. POSPac MMS, available as an option with POS AVX 210, is a powerful GNSS-inertial processing software package that includes proprietary advanced capabilities such as the Applanix SmartBase virtual reference station, Applanix InFusion algorithms for increased productivity, and CalQC, a suite of data optimization and quality management tools.
“POS AVX 210 builds on the technological foundation of our established POS AV portfolio for large format sensors, and brings into play the innovations developed for our unmanned solutions. This combination of experience and innovation enables us to deliver a package that strikes the optimal balance between price and performance for this segment,” Hutton said.
POS AVX 210 is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2016 through Applanix’ airborne sales channels.
Exhibiting at CTIA Super Mobility 2015, Vanja Maric, director of sales and marketing for Rockville, Maryland-based antenna-maker Maxtena, pointed out the challenge that exists for antenna makers in an uncertain drone market: forecasting what will happen next and planning for that future.
“The problem with the drone space its so volatile and so fragmented, and it’s very, very hard to predict,” Maric said. “Speaking to industry leaders in the UAV market, they don’t even know what it’s going to be in three years, and it’s very hard to put all your cards in that.”
That fragmentation is largely a dichotomy between the needs of the professional-grade market and the recreational drone pilots, Maric said. Maxtena is currently the antenna provider for several large UAV manufacturers, although confidentiality prevents them from being named.
“It all comes down to the necessity of precision, and different industries have different needs. UAVs, for example, some use very simple GPS patch antennas, simple receivers and precise location is not as important,” he said. “Then you have guys in the professional space where it is a necessity.”
That necessity right now is in the survey market, particularly RTK solutions for construction and mining operations in emerging countries. The company has seen an uptick in customers from Asia looking for antennas for Beidou. More specifically, Maric said handhelds for lone worker tracking in open pit mining in China has had “fantastic” growth. The M1227 antenna released earlier this year accomplishes this goal.
Maxtena GPS antennas at CTIA 2015
“It’s not just hardware; they have a lot of costs—software, mapping— in on all that, and if that package is right, you have something special. However, don’t forget: The antenna is the link between you and the satellite. That antenna has to be right; that’s what most companies forget,” Maric said. “You can have the best receivers and software in the world, but if you can’t make the link you can’t do it.”
Tallysman, a manufacturer of high-performance GNSS antennas, announces the commercial availability of the VeraPhase 6000 antenna series, a family of antennas that provides the lowest axial ratios (horizon to horizon, through all azimuths) across all GNSS frequencies (70 percent), a tight PCV (± 1mm through all frequencies, azimuths, and elevations), and a consistent PCO through all frequencies.
The performance of the VeraPhase rivals that of choke ring antennas, but is much lighter, smaller and more economical, Tallysman said. The antenna family is designed for use in survey, precision RTK and reference antenna applications.
The VeraPhase 6000 also provides an available PCB within the base of the antenna for integration of a custom system board such as a dual-band or RTK GNSS receivers or other applications.
The VP6000 family provides high receive RHCP gain over the full GNSS spectrum:
low GNSS band (1164 MHz to 1300 MHz)
L-band correction services (1525 MHz to 1559 MHz)
high GNSS band (1559 MHz to 1610 MHz).
Each model features a robust, high IP3, pre-filtered LNA to minimize desensing from high-level out-of-band signals, including 700 MHz LTE, and that yet still provides a noise figure of less than 2.5 dB. Non-pre-filtered versions are also available with a noise figure of less than 1.5 dB.
The VP6000 antenna family is available in three formats:
A survey-grade all-band antenna that provides 35-dB LNA gain and is available with a robust rubber bumper for field use.
An all-band base station antenna is available with 35-dB LNA gain or with an internal 15-dB pre-filtered pre-amp for OEM applications.
An all-band reference antenna that features a 50-dB gain LNA, a conical radome to shed snow ice and birds, and is available with a robust monument mount for sub-millimeter precision.
Each antenna has a well defined phase centre offset relative to the antenna reference plane.
The base housing of the VP6000 is IP67-compliant and weighs less than 700 grams. The antenna is 167 millimeters wide at the top, 110 millimeters wide at the base and 110 millimeters in height. Each model has a 5/8-inch x 11 TPI thread for mounting and is available with either a TNC or an N-type connector.
The latest solutions by Teledyne Optech for the productive and accurate collection of spatial data will be on display at INTERGEO 2015, taking place Sept. 15-17 in Stuttgart, Germany — including a new solution for survey-grade mobile mapping.
At booth C4.019 in Hall 4, Teledyne Optech will present the latest addition to its high-powered Optech Lynx mobile survey systems. The new model is designed for both efficient asset collection and the delivery of engineering survey-grade results, giving operators flexibility for multiple types of jobs. Teledyne Optech will also demonstrate how the advanced features of Optech LMS 3.0 improve collection and processing efficiency by enabling access to survey control.
Several other Teledyne Optech systems will be at the booth, including the Optech Galaxy airborne mapper. Visitors can take the opportunity to see how Galaxy vastly improves survey efficiency and consistency in variable terrain by letting surveyors ignore multipulse blind zones and keep their swath and point density on the ground constant with its PulseTRAK and SwathTRAK technologies. Forestry and coastal data from the Optech Titan will also be available, with Teledyne Optech experts ready to explain the new techniques that surveyors, government agencies and academics have developed to take advantage of its revolutionary multispectral lidar technology for topo/bathy surveys, land classification and biomass estimation.
The CZMIL Nova System is designed for airborne coastal and marine mapping.
Groups interested in surveying deeper in turbid waters than any other airborne lidar can also drop by the booth to hear more about the Optech CZMIL Nova. Even smaller organizations with limited budgets can now make use of CZMIL Nova, thanks to redesigned hardware that lets it survey from aircraft as small as a Piper Navajo, plus the ability to rent the sensor and its HydroFusion workflow through the CZMIL Project Program.
For smaller scale projects, Teledyne Optech will display integrated solutions using the flexible Optech ILRIS terrestrial lidar scanner: Users can rapidly survey open pit mines by combining ILRIS with photogrammetry from the new geo-XR6 UAV, constantly monitor dangerous areas for landslides with the Gexcel OPMMS solution, or even survey harbors above and below water simultaneously with an integrated ILRIS/Seabat sonar system.
Visitors interested in improving productivity and safety in underground mining can see the Optech Cavity Monitoring System (CMS) V500 in action and try out its new integrated camera, georeferencing tools and more.
GPS World reports live from CTIA Super Mobility 2015 in Las Vegas Sept. 8-11, organized by CTIA—The Wireless Association. The Western Hemisphere’s largest mobile innovation summit brings together 35,000 professionals who work in the mobile technology industry, including leaders in wireless, indoor location, connected car and Internet of Things (IoT), among many others.
GPS World digital editor Bethany Chambers and Wireless editor Janice Partyka will be reporting all week here on GPSWorld.com, on Facebook and on Twitter @GPSWorld. This convention is far from conventional in its use of multimedia to fuel the excitement surrounding all things mobile; the show has an official DJ in Los Angeles-based Bella Foxx and an emcee in Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che. Keynotes also follow the multimedia theme this year, with DreamWorks CEO & cofounder Jeffrey Katzenberg, Wikipedia founder Michael Wales and iHeartMedia Chairman Bob Pittman scheduled to appear.
GPS World talks to Taoglas VP of North American Sales Tim Dolan on the show floor in Las Vegas about the Storm Antenna. He explains what makes it unique to the market–and what comes next.
TeleCommunication Systems Inc. Senior Vice President of Commercial Solutions Jay Whitehurst introduces VirtuMedix at CTIA Super Mobility 2015. The telemedicine solution utilizes location-based services to connect patients with clinicians in their area.
Olivier Pauzet, vice president of marketing and market strategy at Sierra Wireless, details AirVantage connectivity services for fleet tracking and the recent addition of Google cloud integration.
Jorge Pineda, vice president of sales for Queclink Wireless Solutions, shares information on the company’s U.S. and international sales plans for 2015 and beyond, with a focus on fleet tracking and global LTE expansion.
Parsec Technologies CEO Michael Neenan introduces the company’s LTE/GPS antenna. The antenna, which you can find out more about at parsec-t.com, is already in production and available for sale, and Neenan previews how the antenna will be used further in a watch coming out later this year. Find out more about the Texas-based company’s antenna, touted for its flexibility and interoperability.
Janet Jaiswal, vice president of enterprise marketing, and Gurinder Dhillon, senior director of Internet of Things (IoT) platforms and analytics, demonstrate how AerCloud and AerVoyance work together to enable rapid development, deployment and monitoring of IoT solutions.
Routescene aims to alter the surveying world, allowing surveys to take place that previously would have been cost or time prohibitive. The Routescene LidarPod, introduced at INTERGEO 2014, was developed to save time, improve efficiencies and productivity.
The LidarPod — 3D mapping technology designed specifically for use on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — enables faster surveys, decreasing time in the field and reducing data download time, ensuring users are working with resulting datasets within hours, Routescene said. The business benefits mean surveying is more accessible, can be applied to more scenarios, and enables customers to allocate budget more effectively, the company said.
The LidarPod has many applications, such as powerline inspection for utilities, in forestry to determine biomass volumes, cut and fill analysis in mining, and highway mapping and surveys. The LidarPod is a turnkey system that is lightweight, compact and quick to deploy in the field, the company said. It can be used on vehicles as well as UAVs, making it flexible in many different environments.
Tony Murfin, GPS World’s contributing editor for professional OEM editor, discussed the Routescene LidarPod in his column.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has contracted with Woolpert to evaluate new lidar (light detection and ranging) technologies to assess the suitability to support the 3D Elevation Program (3DEP).
This use of the single photon and Geiger mode lidar for this evaluation is new to the commercial market, according to Woolpert Project Director John Gerhard.
“This technology provides the ability to fly at higher altitudes while acquiring data at an increased point density,” Gerhard said. “The USGS has asked us to provide an evaluation of this sensor technology in support of 3DEP.”
The USGS is developing the 3DEP initiative to respond to the growing need for high-quality topographic data nationwide, to address issues that include flood-risk management, precision agriculture, natural resource management, infrastructure management and hazard mitigation.
Woolpert — a national architecture, engineering and geospatial firm — will then evaluate the data, conduct an accuracy analysis, develop final data products and provide a comprehensive report to the USGS by the end of the year.
Finnish radio data communication specialist Satel will present innovative new products for mission-critical radio data networks at INTERGEO, being held in Stuttgart, Germany, Sept. 15-17.
In Germany, radio data communication solutions from Satel are distributed by the full-range and systems provider Welotec. At the trade fair in Stuttgart, the partners will present their products at adjacent stands. Both Satel as a radio data communication specialist and Welotec as a full-range and systems provider have a strong portfolio for the core market of RTK/GNSS, UAV and RPAS (remotely piloted aircraft systems) applications.
By 2020, Satel intends to be the world’s number one provider of mission-critical data connections, it said in a statement. This goal also includes becoming the technology leader, which the company hopes to achieve through intensified research and development.
At INTERGEO, Satel will present its latest products. Visitors will be able to see the OEM modules Satelline-M3-TR1 and Satelline-M3-TR4. These modules allow use of the frequencies requiring a license (330 – 473 MHz) as well as the European license-free frequency ranges (433.05 – 434.79 MHz and 869.400 – 869.650 MHz).
The newly developed Satelline-M3-TR4 is the smallest available data transceiver module in its class, according to Satel. The Satel Compact-Proof is a portable radio data modem with a rechargeable battery and a flexible tuning range (403 – 473 MHz). The robust Satelline EASy Pro 25W, likewise with a broad tuning range (403 – 473 MHz), allows radio communication up to a range of 50 km, which makes it quite versatile.
Welotec offers a large range of antennas that supplement the Satel radio data modems. The antennas cover a large frequency range from 68 MHz to 6000 MHz, indoor and outdoor applications, MIMO technology and also antennas with an operating range from minus 40 degrees Celsius to 80 degrees C for use in harsh environments. At INTERGEO, visitors will see innovative solutions from Welotec in the area of industrial communication — for example, the industrial UMTS, LTE and WLAN routers of the TK800 series or the high-performance Industrial-WLAN access point DM500. For measuring tasks, Welotec offers the laser distance sensor OWTB V2.1, which features an extremely high resolution and ranges of up to 500 meters for industrial applications.
Satel and Welotec will be at INTERGEO 2015 in Stuttgart in Hall 4, Booth G4.020. GPS World is covering INTERGEO live — visit gpsworld.com and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
A research team at Florida Atlantic University’s (FAU) College of Engineering and Computer Science has received a $187,000 grant from the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) to develop autonomous waterborne vehicles that can assist in bridge inspections.
Although the technology is still in the early stages of development, the long-term aim is that the unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) could be used by the agency to make bridge inspectors’ work safer and more efficient, according to GovTech.com. FDOT currently uses a variety of methods and equipment to inspect and test the sections of the state’s 11,451 bridges that are above water level. However, the only method that can be used to check the sub-surface areas is divers, who search for cracks, erosion, damage and defects that might impact on a bridge’s safety. A high percentage of Florida’s bridges are in corrosive salt water, and divers frequently experience problems with low visibility from silt, sediment, debris and algae, weed or other plant matter.
The team from FAU’s Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering have experience in USV research, and won second place at the eighth annual International RoboBoat Competition in Virginia Beach, Va., according to GovTech.com.
Two months into a 12-month project, the team has upgraded a watercraft used for past research projects with a new propulsion system that allows the craft to maintain its position and heading during a bridge scan. The next phase of research will be to equip the craft with an acoustic scanning system that functions in a similar manner to a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) system. By installing the scanner on a mount that can tilt and pan, researchers expect to obtain 3D models of the parts of the bridge that are below the water.
The current vessel is equipped with an automatic control system that uses GPS and a compass to direct the craft toward programmed waypoints, and can keep it steady in a variable current, allowing scanning to take place. Once the acoustic scanner is equipped in September, the team will begin testing the craft’s scanning capabilities on three bridges that have been recommended by FDOT for their diverse representation of the state’s bridge environments.
“These sorts of technologies aren’t really meant to replace wholesale divers and so forth,” the FAU project’s principal investigator, Karl von Ellenrieder, told GovTech.com. “It’s to make their jobs easier, and it’s another tool that can help them do their jobs better. The way I view it is, you would take a vehicle like this and it would allow you to more rapidly scan bridges, and then when you detect a problem, send out a diver to verify the problem through testing. If you’re going to send divers out into strong currents with nasty snakes and stuff, it’s better to have a good sense there’s a problem before you do that.”
The GrAnt by JAVAD GNSS is a versatile high-performance antenna.
With J-shield — the JAVAD GNSS filter that protects GPS L1, Galileo L1 and GLONASS L1 bands — the GrAnt antenna can track GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou, WAAS, EGNOS, MSAS, GAGAN and QZSS signals. J-shield brings in all the useful signals intact and rejects out-of-band signals with the slope of about 12 dB/MHz. Similarly, the filter protects GPS L2, GPS L5, GLONASS L2, GLONASS L3 and Galileo L5, and has slope of about 9 dB/MHz. The filters have been extensively tested with five different innovative tests that prove that the filters also improve the performance of GNSS receivers.
The GrAnt antenna can be mounted on flat surfaces with four screws or mounted on standard poles (5/8-11 or 1-14 inch thread). The antenna cable can be connected via the standard TNC (N-type optional) connector on its side or routed through the center of the antenna for ultimate protection in harsh environments.
An optional ground plane can be purchased to increase multipath mitigation.
The top-level model, the GrAnt-G5T, supports a wider band to accommodate additional signals, with frequencies of 1555-1610 MHz and 1164-1300 MHz. Full signal capability of the GrAnt-G5T is:
Trimble has introduced its next-generation Trimble Indoor Mobile Mapping Solution (TIMMS) that produces fast and accurate maps of difficult-to-navigate indoor spaces and translates them directly into 2D and 3D models of structured interiors.
